A Bag of Lollipops

A couple of weeks ago, in Caleta Suarez, two fishing boats tied up to us. I was invited on to one of them. On board I had a great interaction with the fishermen living there. In the main salon, I sat at a table talking with a crew member while making weight bags. The weight bags are pieces of mesh that I would thread line through and tie off. They are like draw-string bags. The fishermen would then put stones in them to weigh down their fishing lines, which were long lines that they use offshore.

There were five fishermen making the bags but I talked with one in particular. I cannot remember his name. The others were in on the conversation but I directed my questions to the one crew member. He knew about as much English as I knew Spanish and we talked slowly, going back and forth between Spanish and English. I would say something and he would help me come up with the Spanish word I needed. Or I would provide him with English words so he could talk with me. He asked me about living on Sila and he told me about living on the fishing boat. He had been a fisherman working on this particular boat for 16 years. The other crew members had been working for about the same amount of time. I thoroughly enjoyed talking with them and learning about their lives as fisherman.

After I talked with the fishermen, I got a tour of their boat. I went forward out of the salon, which was very cramped, to the sleeping quarters. Compared to the salon, they were tiny. There was just enough space to squeeze into a bunk to have a nap on what looked like a comfortable bed. I do not know where they kept their personal possessions, although I did see some jackets hanging on hooks. I noticed that the four bunks, not including the small space where they could stand up, was about as big as the cabin on Sila that Porter and I share right now, but sometimes I even get the whole cabin to myself. I have a lot more space than those fishermen.

A ladder in the sleeping quarters led up to the watch post. It had the steering wheel, radar, compass, and navigation controls. The captain's berth was right behind this station. I learned that the crew did not know how to avoid other boats and navigate. They just know how to fish. The crew member on watch could easily wake the captain if there was the need to navigate. After this, I went down to the engine room. A hatch in the floor in the salon led there. The engine room was as big as the salon above except for the low ceiling. It felt smaller because a huge engine was plopped in the middle. I also noticed that raingear and fishing gear was stowed away in the corners of the low-ceilinged room. I know how hard it is to dry rain gear on a boat so it is smart to use the heat of the engine room to dry wet things. It was cool to see the whole boat.

In the weeks leading up to this, I had not seen other people on boats. I had never seen the inside of a fishing boat before. And I had never spoken so directly to someone in Spanish before. All of these things contributed to making this an interesting afternoon. As if that wasn't enough, they also gave us a bag of delicious lollipops. - Jack Rabbit